Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
TO THE FUTURE ME
The world has changed. Will it ever be the same? This is such a different life from the one we knew. But then again, maybe this different won’t be so scary or bad. Just new. Sending love, courage, wisdom, and strength to the students, the parents, the workers, the grandparents, the scared and the weary, the calm and those finding rest. To the older generations who I hope are staying safe and to the younger generations who I have faith will still find a way to pursue everything they want to be. To the future you. To the future me.
— Madison Kersten (Shepherdstown, West Virginia)
Twenty and quarantined.
* * *
APRIL 7TH
We’ve hardly ever needed a reason to go out to eat. Birthdays and anniversaries, of course, but I’ve always preferred the smaller occasions – going for curry because just the two of us are home (none of my siblings like Indian food), or visiting the deli when his job takes him to my neighborhood. The experience is more than the food; a turmeric-yellow wall with mesmerizing Bollywood scenes on the TVs. Sandwiches passed over the counter, checkered floors and aisles of pastas and sauces.
My dad turned 54 today. Eating from Styrofoam boxes is dull in comparison, but we dare not abandon tradition.
— Emily Stearney (Chicago, Illinois)
Happier times; a vacation dinner in Mexico.
* * *
SENIOR YEAR
Final semester lost. Forced to leave campus. No more late nights living with my best friend. No last beautiful spring on campus. Graduation and senior art show are in question. No more passing friends on campus every day. No goodbyes to favorite professors. Had lasts without even knowing it. Senior year over. Classrooms now through a computer screen. Dining room becomes my art studio. Extracurricular activities consist of taking my dog for a walk. Only 2000 steps a day. No schedule or concept of time. My world has been turned upside down. Not how I pictured my last semester of college.
— Jana Blomberg (Plymouth, Minnesota)
My “school†turned upside down.
* * *
LAMENTING
I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a crier. I get sad and happy at movies, books, and things a lot of people wouldn’t think someone would cry for. But I haven’t cried for this. I refuse. I cry for the friends and home I’ve been sent away from and I shall cry for those who have experienced the same. I will weep for the parents who are having difficulty feeding their children and the kids who won’t get to see their best friends for months. I don’t cry for COVID-19, I cry for humanity.
— Patrick Meadows (Franklin, Tennessee)
(Top photo: Writing in my sketchbook.)
———-
Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
The world’s first Earth Day was held fifty years ago on April 22, 1970 while I was a freshman in college. To commemorate the event, Hans-Dieter Froese, a prominent New York contemporary artist and my sculpture professor at the time, gave our class an assignment to design and implement a bio-degradable, site-specific, outdoor installation.
Although common today, the terms “site specific†and “installation†were brand new to the contemporary art world in 1970, as was the notion of “bio-degradable†materials. I didn’t know then that what we had been assigned to do could also be classified as public art and that so many years later I would be immersed in two, large-scale, site-specific, public art installations. If you would have told me that I would be remembering my first primitive attempt in that discipline in 2020, I would not have believed you. Nor could I have imagined that my paintings, public art projects and writing would be focusing almost exclusively on the environment and the climate crisis.
After surveying familiar materials that might be used to complete the class assignment, my classmate, Leslie, and I chose to collaborate on a red Jello installation. (Don’t laugh, we were serious about this.) Jello, we thought, was bio-degradable because it would melt back into a harmless liquid that could be absorbed into the ground when it was exposed to heat. We selected a specific site outside our dorm that had full sun exposure and was visible to a large number of students, and we correctly predicted that a sculpture comprised only of a red, transparent substance that could reflect the light of the sun would create a very dramatic statement. What we didn’t realize was that the red dye used in the Jello contained chemicals that were harmful to the environment. (Packaging labels that include ingredients were still a thing of the future.) We also didn’t realize that to make, refrigerate and transport the product of 150 boxes of Jello would require an enormous amount of time and effort.
Thankfully, April 22, 1970 was a warm, sunny day. As a consequence, when the sculpture was installed in the sun alongside the walkway outside our dorm, the Jello melted as required. I have no photograph of the actual sculpture to document the moment but picture this: multiple 12″ x 18″ slabs of red Jello piled on top of each other at various angles to a height of about three feet, shining brilliantly in the sun. Despite our initial misgivings about the project, we had created a dynamic, jiggling, ephemeral installation that challenged the college community to consider a work of art in a new discipline, comprised of an unusual material and marking the first Earth Day. The generic image below will give you a general idea of what the installation looked like.
I remember some of my fellow students mocking our efforts as they passed by the installation that day. Is this “modern art?†they sneered. “You get credit for this?†Very few students outside of Froese’s class understood that the installation was a visual statement promoting a green environment and conservation of the Earth’s resources. For those who actually stopped to interact with us, though, the installation was successful in stimulating conversations on why we needed to talk about the natural environment and our responsibilities to it.
Earth Day 1970 was the first time that millions of Americans united to respond to contemporary environmental issues, which then consisted of damaging oil spills, choking smog, species extinction and highly polluted rivers. The passage of critical environmental laws came about as a direct result of the positive energy generated in 1970 and included The Clean Air (1970), Clean Water (1972) and Endangered Species (1973) Acts as well as the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (1970). Earth Day 1970 marked the beginning of the environmental movement in this country.
All these years later, as I watch the growing effects of climate disruption occurring across the world, I can’t help but think back to the 1970’s and 1980’s when scientists were already aware of the dangers that would severely impact the health of the planet if we did not cut back on the use of chlorofluorocarbons, fossil fuels and other manmade compounds. As early as 1962, Rachel Carson in her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, had warned of the damages happening to wildlife, bees, agricultural animals, pets and humans caused by the use of pesticides and other chemicals. We did not heed these early warnings and are now faced with global warming at an unprecedented level, rising tides that threaten shoreline cities and island nations, melting glaciers and other severe consequences of our inaction.
Fast forward to Earth Day 2020.
There is something happening in 2020, however, that reminds me of 1970 and gives me hope for our planet – the level of energy being generated by young people who see their futures at risk. They are led by 16-year old Greta Thunberg, the moral voice for climate action, who on her own, conducted weekly climate strikes in Sweden that have become commonplace all over the world; fifteen-year-old Autumn Peltier, who is fighting for water conservation and indigenous water rights in her native Canada; nineteen-year-old Bruno Rodriguez of Buenos Aires, who organized student walkouts against corporate greed and governmental complacency about climate change; twenty-year-old Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, the youth director of Earth Guardians, who with others, sued the Federal government over water rights and for failing to protect the younger generation’s rights to life, liberty and property; and numerous others.
These young people have started a new movement, supported in part by a global Earth Day Network of millions of participants and thousands of partners. While the major thrust of Earth Day 1970 was environmental awareness, the theme for Earth Day 2020 is climate action. As I write this, the novel coronavirus Covid-19 is spreading rapidly throughout the global population and will no doubt prevent the implementation of plans that have been developed for engaging hundreds of millions of people in Earth Day clean-up projects, education, advocacy and other meaningful activities to combat climate disruption. A difference for me personally between 2020 and 1970 is the existence of an army of artists addressing our climate crisis – thousands of painters, sculptors, installation artists, poets, spoken word artists, dancers, playwrights, photographers, novelists, filmmakers, videographers, etc. – which did not exist in 1970. They are using the power of the arts to engage the hearts and senses in ways that data and facts cannot. I am proud to be among them and to derive support and inspiration from them. On Earth Day 2020, let’s acknowledge those who have worked on behalf of the environment over the last fifty years, including my college sculpture professor who encouraged us to pay attention on that historic day.
This article is part of Imagining Water, a series on artists of all genres who are making the topic of water and climate disruption a focus of their work and on the growing number of exhibitions, performances, projects and publications that are appearing in museums, galleries and public spaces around the world with water as a theme.
______________________________
Susan Hoffman Fishman is a painter, public artist and writer. Her work has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries throughout the US and she has received numerous grants and commissions. Since 2011, all of her paintings, installations and drawings have focused on water and climate change. She co-created a national, interactive public art project, The Wave, which addresses our mutual need for and interdependence on water and has inspired thousands of adults and children of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to protect this vital resource. Her most recent body of work calls attention to the growing number of rampikes along our shores – dead trees that have been exposed to salt water as a result of rising tides.
———-
Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
WHAT WE TAKE IN
I made it to another Friday. Outside, there is a man teaching his son the difference between “goose†and “geese.†His lessons echo through the packed houses of our shared driveway and into our rooms. Inside, my landlord’s toddler has a conversation with his grandfather. He speaks – well, yells – his baby jargon while everyone else listens. He has command of the room.
I am quiet, thinking about the people with masks exchanging unknown air for droplets of worry. I wonder what I can do with what I’ve witnessed, and what words should come out with the breaths I have left.
— Jonar Isip (San Ramon, California)
(Top photo: Packed houses.)
* * *
SIX MILES APART
On the spacious Jeffrey Trail, walkers, runners, bikers, and dogs merge in and out trying to stay six-feet apart, when I hear my four-year-old grandson exclaim, “Grammy! You’re not staying six miles away from them!†I hear the fear in his voice and I smile. I correct his miles to feet and show him what six feet look like, and I reassure him that everything is okay. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, if it will be okay, but today it is, on the Jeffrey Trail, with my two grandchildren, and I am grateful.
— Tamara Hendrick (Irvine, California)
Grandkids on the Jeffrey Trail.
* * *
SPRINGTIME: A CALL FOR CHANGE
Spring has sprung. I wake to birdsong, sit in the sunshine on my patch of concrete. I breathe chilled air as the earth breathes a sigh of relief. My phone buzzes with news from afar: France, Canada, Brazil, Australia; family and friends in self-isolation reaching out and checking in, swapping coping strategies, jokes, cabin-fever catastrophes, appeals to loved ones for resilience and strength. Força. Courage. As we draw inwards, we look outwards, see that we are made stronger by what unites, not what divides us. May this be a lesson to us all, and one that we never forget.
— Gina Robinson (Bristol, United Kingdom)
Spring in Bristol.
* * *
TIME MOVES DIFFERENTLY HERE
It’s Thursday. Is it Thursday? It is Thursday. I have lived an entire day in an hour.
I stop to make a cup of tea. I fill the mug with hot water, watch the teabag drift aimlessly, imagine being cwtched on all sides, warm and safe as I float dreamlessly onwards.
When I look up, an entire afternoon has flung itself past my window.
Time is contracted and concertinaed and stretched beyond recognition, all at once.
From between the folds; the song of a blackbird emerges, unfurls. On and on it goes, until it fills the infinite void.
— Ruth Stringer (Cardiff, Wales)
Tea.
______________________________
This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.
———-
Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
I AM ESSENTIAL
10:45 AM. Metro North? Uh uh. I drive. ICON parking. Gloves, homemade mask around my neck, red polka dots. I take the ticket, walk three blocks to work. A few pedestrians. We nod, acknowledging the war. It’s important to get news on the air. I risk my life, my family’s health, for Lester and Rachel and Stephanie, who all get to work remotely. I don’t. I’m essential. Home, it’s midnight. I stand outside, have a smoke, remove my clothes. They go in the basket marked radioactive. Then shower, pajamas, bourbon, ice. I don’t feel it. I can’t, or I’ll cry.
— Rick Dettwyler (Amawalk, New York)
A woman in town makes these, gave me four.
* * *
MY NINETY-ONE-YEAR-OLD MOM
My mother is ninety-one years old and completely deaf. When one of her five daughters calls her, she can’t hear the phone ring, even if she’s sitting right next to it. Her fellow assisted living residents must be six feet apart, so she can’t converse with them either. My mother doesn’t email or text, so my older sister bought her a phone that displays our conversations on a screen. Now that her gift of gab has been restored, she can rant about politics, gossip, and give unsolicited advice extravagantly, for which my sisters and I are extraordinarily grateful.
— Gina Caruso (Baltimore, Maryland)
My ninety-one-year-old Mom.
* * *
GASP
I stand in front of our old refrigerator. The door is open, and I’m aware that whatever cold air was left is now leaking out. Still, I can’t help but stare. The previously empty shelves are weighted down with almond milk and wine and tortillas. These days, with two adult children home, we are suddenly a family of four. Steve tries not to shop too often and yesterday found a stocked grocery store. I have asthma and am grateful he shops. But our refrigerator feels as if it’s gasping for air. Once again, I think, please don’t die.
— Suzanne Greenberg (Long Beach, California)
Weighted down.
* * *
WANDERINGS
In my most recent work, Wanderings, I include a broad range of photographic approaches, including digital capture and output, photo-encaustic on paper, and historical processes such as wet plate collodion. Wanderings began in 2015 as an investigation into place and family, and now amidst the COVID lockdown, I have found myself and my daughter isolated for days on end with nowhere to go but to walk on our six acres. In this space, new worlds have been created, ideas fostered, and photographic collaboration between mother and child has developed.
— Brooke C. White (Oxford, Mississippi)
(Top photo: Tree hugger.)
———-
Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
READING BHITAI DURING LOCKDOWN
We read Bhitai, the eighteenth century patron saint and poet of Sindh. A friend and I do readings on a WhatsApp call across borders. I choose Sur Sorath, the story of a traveling musician and the king of Sorath, who offers any reward he wants, so besotted is he with the musician. The musician wants nothing but the king’s head. Sadly reminiscent of the time of coronavirus:
Neither rich nor poor escape its clutches It takes whosoever’s life it wishes In its snare rulers and kings turn to dust May such a seeker never come to town Whose coming is the call of death
— Nighat Gandhi (India)
(Top photo: Musicians sing Bhitai’s poetry at his shrine in Bhit Shah, Sindh, Pakistan.)
* * *
FREEFALL
I’ve been doing online yoga with a friend, the poses channeling my motion. We don’t realize what freedom is until it’s restricted. My son says I seem more active in lockdown than in normal life—daily yoga, my government-permitted walk around the block—but I feel like a hamster on a wheel. Outside in the silent streets time seems in freefall, spring slipping away without us. One day the lot down the street is full of wildflowers, the next day it’s clods of brown earth. I remember that last afternoon at the beach: feet walking, then running.
— Lisa Suhair Majaj (Nicosia, Cyprus)
Larnaca Beach, an hour before lockdown.
* * *
YOU ARE LOVED
The edifices crumble.
I felt this way when my marriage fell apart. I looked at our 150 year-old brick house and saw it dissolve into sand—this tall building that I thought was firm.
Yes, my friend replied. I’m alone. I have the symptoms. Fever. Cough. I can’t get tested because I didn’t come in contact with someone who has the virus. No one knows if they have the virus because there are no tests. I have to be in respiratory failure to get tested.
If I die, who will take my cat? Who will take my birds?
— Laurie Marshall (Novato, California)
“Flying Toward the Wound†by Laurie Marshall.
* * *
POOR QUEER ON COVID-19 POST
March 23. ACT UP New York posts an image referencing David Wojnarowicz. The Twitter queers and allies tear it up. “Why Mar-a-Lago? … this ain’t it.†“DO NOT COMPARE THESE TWO.†They forget that the poor and the colored bodies were most impacted by the HIV/VIH and AIDS/SIDA epidemic(s)… They are suffering. Cada dia, noche, y año. No access to health care. Upward mobility blinds—blinds the better off. The comparison? The poor and colored bodies suffer(ed) the most. So if I die because of a lack of resources, take me to Mar-a-Lago.
— Alined Bolero (Orange, California)
ACT UP New York compares the HIV/AIDS epidemic to COVID-19.
______________________________
This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.
———-
Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
As someone who works in the climate storytelling space, I have marveled the last couple of weeks at how climate change activists, writers, artists, and other storytellers have responded to the COVID-19 health crisis, drawing important links between the outbreak and climate change. I want to bring attention to these voices, which include, among others, Mary Annaïse Heglar (What Climate Grief Taught Me About the Coronavirus), and Bill McKibben (The Nature of Crisis).
As for this series, it’ll keep the interviews coming for as long as I can. I think there’s something to be said for maintaining some kind of normalcy during periods of uncertainty. I also think that the work of the artists I feature continues to be vitally important.
Case in point: This week’s interviewee, filmmaker and magazine editor Emmanuel Vaughn-Lee, is the director of Earthrise, a documentary film about the first photograph of Earth taken from space. You can stream the 30-minute film online.Â
I was delighted to interview Emmanuel. Not only am I a fan of his filmmaking, I love his magazine, Emergence. Serving as the magazine’s Executive Editor, Emmanuel has created a space on the internet for beautiful and ground-breaking storytelling that crosses genres and pushes the limits of what a multi-media publication can do. The magazine, which is mostly online but also publishes an annual print edition, focuses on climate change, environmental justice, and ecological mindfulness. In the wake of the outbreak, Emergence is also offering FOR FREE an online book club, conversations with contributors, a nature writing course, and other workshops. I recommend checking all of them out.
In this interview, I spoke with Emmanuel about his filmmaking and his work at Emergence, what he sees as the value of multi-media environmental storytelling, and what he hopes to publish at Emergence in the near future.
As the maker of Earthrise, a documentary about the first photograph of Earth from space, and the Executive Editor of the ecologically minded Emergence Magazine – both of which we’ll discuss in more detail momentarily – you have long focused your artistic energy on environmental justice, climate change, and other ecological and humanitarian concerns. What draws you to your subject matter?
I have always felt drawn to stories that explore our relationship to the living world, and all the myriad forms that relationship takes. Climate change, environmental justice, ecological, and humanitarian issues are all interconnected. We can’t look at what is happening to our ecosystems – locally or globally – without looking at ourselves. We need to look deeper at the root causes of these issues, which to me stem from our separation from and desacralization of the Earth.
Through my films, I’ve been exploring both of these root causes. The lens might shift from a personal character-driven story about the first US climate refugees to a film about the last speaker of a Native American language or the story of the Earthrise photograph. Still they all seek to reveal the impacts of disconnection and separation from the living world and explore the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality.
Stories can be powerful tools not only in raising awareness or understanding but also in helping to weave back together a fabric of connection with the living world. They have always been and will continue to be the foundation of our cultures. Yet, because of greed, materialism, and exploitation, our stories have become distorted, and our fabric frayed. We’ve become profoundly disconnected from our roots and from the Earth. We need the kind of stories that help us to weave those threads back together and build a foundation grounded in reciprocity, kinship, and connection with the Earth.
Emmanuel interviewing during production of the film Earthrise. Photo by Andrew David Watson.
Emergence Magazine is a quarterly online publication with an annual print edition that launched in early 2018. Please tell us about how you came to be involved with the magazine.
Up until founding Emergence, I had primarily worked within the mediums of film and music (I was a jazz musician before I became a filmmaker). But I’ve always been interested in pairing different mediums together to create a unique and dynamic storytelling experience. I’d done some of this in the past, creating online platforms or multimedia that blended film, photography, essays, audio, and interactive web experiences, but on a much smaller scale than what we’ve been doing at Emergence.
The idea of creating the magazine came from the desire to create a multidimensional storytelling platform that combined all these mediums and experimented with new mediums to create a compelling narrative experience and explore how to live in relationship with the living world in a rich and meaningful way. Expanding on what I’ve been trying to do through my films and work over the last fifteen years, I wanted to create a platform that invited diverse writers, artists, and filmmakers into a space where they can explore ideas and create and share compelling and meaningful stories.
Emergence launched as a multi-media publication that combines visual art, sound, documentary, and all kinds of writing. How do you see these various modes of creation working together to tell stories?
The notion of what a “magazine†is has been changing as publications leverage the web, podcasts and digital storytelling as part of the magazine format. If you’re purely a print publication, then the stories you can tell are limited to ones that can be presented on the printed page. Being both an online and print publication with a podcast means we can leverage multiple mediums to tell stories and engage with audiences through diverse formats. Sometimes the best or most dynamic way to tell a story is through film, photography, or multimedia, whereas other times, the best approach is through a traditional article or essay. Virtual reality is a new medium that opens up dramatically different ways to tell or experience a story. And listening to an author narrate their essay is a different experience than reading it.
We’ve also been telling stories that bring multiple mediums together and encouraging collaborations between artists, writers, and filmmakers. For example, in our latest issue on Trees, we have two of these collaborations. A multimedia experience with poet Forrest Gander and artist Katie Holten exploring the relationships that surround the redwood tree and a film and essay on the church forests of Ethiopia by writer Fred Bahnson and filmmaker Jeremy Siefert.
With these diverse mediums, we’re trying to both offer a multi-sensory way of telling and experiencing stories while engaging with audiences in ways that dynamically explore the print, online, and podcast formats. The vision behind Emergence was always to create a space where these mediums of creative expression would live and thrive side by side, informing each other, building off each other, and offering audiences multiple ways to slow down and connect with these stories.
Recording a podcast for Emergence Magazine. Photo by Seana Quinn.
What kinds of stories – in terms of form or content – do you hope to tell in the future at Emergence?
One of the most exciting things we’ve been experimenting with at Emergence is offering a live event and gallery experience of the magazine. Over the past year we’ve done a series of special “pop-up†events with film screenings, virtual reality installations, gallery installations, and live storytelling. In the same way we’ve been combining mediums online and in print, we’ve been doing that for live events. Sharing stories with live audiences is as archetypal as it gets, and there is something deeply satisfying and nourishing that comes from people being in a physical space together, sharing stories. It’s something we hope to do a lot more of in the future.
As far as content…there is never a shortage of great and important stories to tell that seek to challenge the dominant human exceptionalist worldview and help us reconnect with the living world. I’m always deeply inspired by the ideas and stories our contributors and staff come up with.
Let’s discuss your filmmaking career. I saw your documentary Earthrisefor the first time last year on Earth Day. What an incredible film! The original photograph is deeply moving, but the story behind how the photo was captured is absolutely fascinating. How did you come across this story, and at what point did you know it’d make for a good documentary?
I’ve always been drawn to the Earthrise photograph and the powerful earth photography captured during the Apollo program. A few years ago, I learned that NASA had no interest or intention to capture images of the Earth during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, the first mission where humans left Earth’s atmosphere and journeyed to the moon. And in all the space documentaries I had seen, this story was never told. It wasn’t just that the Earthrise photograph was a surprise; it transformed the way humanity saw ourselves and ushered in a collective shift in consciousness.
But the backstory – the fact that NASA and the astronauts didn’t think about the value of photography – was too good to pass up. And, surprisingly, it hadn’t been told before. With the 50th anniversary of the photograph coming up, I thought it would be an important and worthwhile story to tell. And amid our deeply forgetful collective culture, one where the image of the whole Earth and its significance is often taken for granted, telling this story could be an opportunity for returning to its significance and its relevance 50 years later, in the midst of climate breakdown and division.
Once I sat down and interviewed the Apollo 8 astronauts, who shared their story with candor, vulnerability, and humility, I knew there was something special to work with. And that 16mm footage and 70mm photography they captured never gets old.
The subject of climate change has finally begun to permeate almost every art form I can think of. Where do you see it entering the realm of filmmaking?
I think climate change entered the realm of filmmaking quite a while ago. It wasn’t until AnInconvenient Truth in 2006 that it hit the mainstream, but it had been going on for quite some time before that. And there have been so many climate change-related films since then, both documentary and narrative. It’s hard to keep up. Luckily there are less and less “big picture†talking heads, fear-based films being made and more creative approaches being taken, and personal character-driven narratives that connect audiences on a relatable human level to what’s happening.
What I think we need more of, and what I haven’t seen much of, is narratives that don’t just focus on the human experience or threats. We need more stories that share the non-human experience and the connections between the human and non-human.
I have seen VR and AR starting to do this more and more – using the medium to experience reality from the non-human perspective and how climate change and our relationship to the living world isn’t just about us.
What’s next for you?
I’m actually taking a year or two off from making films and just focusing on the magazine at the moment. Right now we’re working on volume two of the Emergence print edition and a new online version of the magazine, both of which will be released in the fall. That’s more than enough to keep me busy.
This article is part of the Climate Art Interviews series. It was originally published in Amy Brady’s “Burning Worlds†newsletter. Subscribe to get Amy’s newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.
___________________________
Amy Brady is the Deputy Publisher of Guernica magazine and Senior Editor of the Chicago Review of Books. Her writing about art, culture, and climate has appeared in the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times, Pacific Standard, the New Republic, and other places. She is also the editor of the monthly newsletter “Burning Worlds,†which explores how artists and writers are thinking about climate change. She holds a PHD in English and is the recipient of a CLIR/Mellon Library of Congress Fellowship. Read more of her work at AmyBradyWrites.com at and follow her on Twitter at @ingredient_x.
———-
Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
THE WOMB SPACE SPEAKS
Mothers have the natural ability to nurture anything and an exponential capacity to love. So, I settled on the joyous idea to plan for another. My husband and I debate about adoption and bringing another human into an uncertain world. I’ve been uneasy about the whole thing. Climate change isn’t a tiger scratching at our front door. Then, the virus talk started. Now, we stay close to home in hopes a silent killer who can walk through walls doesn’t creep into our lungs. I love you, you courageous unborns and mothers to be. I love you so much.
— Victoria Carranza (Atascadero, California)
Let’s hold each other and remember we are all growing through this.
* * *
OBSIDIAN
My cat who was dying last week has revived and is chasing a ball through the living room. Twenty years old with kitten glee, but wiliness, too, from experience. Obsidian. We call him Sid. I say we, but it’s just me here, and the cats. I find myself using the plural to feel less alone. I’m not alone: four cats, various gopher innards and lizard tails to clean up, the occasional, oh God, hummingbird feather.
If one must stay home, as I must and am and shall, cats are better than television, when they’re awake. And not dying.
I look, I wander, I see: eyes climb the neighbor’s tree, the fertile grounds screaming for spring, and as I take the brush for a walk among the branches, the ants, the bugs, the birds yet to sing, we both wonder, persimmon and I, on the summer breeze and the beautiful days to be.
— LÃgia Oliveira (Portugal)
Taking a line for a walk in nature…
* * *
SHELTERING OUTSIDE
Sheltering in place, New York City. I bike, repeatedly, to visit my girlfriend; she bikes back. Biking is strange, even scary. Pedestrians are everywhere, together and separate, on the sidewalks and the bike path, each jockeying for aerosol-free private space. For several days I am pissed off at the bike path intruders; why don’t they walk or run where it’s safe… away from me and my pent-up bike? And then it hits me. Community space is under renovation. Let it go, I tell myself. Slow down. It’s a new world, maybe a kinder one? Do I have it in me?
This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.
———-
Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
For this post, we travel to South Africa to explore the beautiful country and environmental themes found within Deon Meyer’s crime novels (Meyer writes in his native Afrikaans, and his books have been translated in many languages). The Lemmer series, which includes Blood Safari and Trackers, are well-reviewed thrillers filled with what one reviewer calls:
A cast of characters in situations and relationships that are evident of the ‘new’ South Africa: whites, blacks, men, and women in different power struggles…different racial and political tensions, selfsame greed and corruption.
In this series are conflicts central to wildlife poaching, including the white-backed vulture and black rhinoceros. Lemmer is an “invisible†professional bodyguard who is hired to get involved with situations he would rather not, but he does so for the money. “I don’t go looking for trouble, it comes looking for me.â€
Black rhinoceros at Halali waterhole. Photo by Olga Ernst.
The Lemmer series isn’t Meyer’s only work dealing with plots and issues centered around environmental subjects. According to Livers Hebdo, Deon Meyer “excels in his descriptions of the urban and natural landscapes.â€
I talked briefly with the author and asked him what sorts of environmental issues made their way into his novels. He replied:
I tend to write about the issues that concern me most: the destruction of natural habitats, ecosystems and species extinction in (Southern) Africa, and global warming in general.
When I asked about unique situations regarding climate change and other ecological crises in South Africa, compared to the rest of the world, he said:Â
Of course, the endangered species (rhinos, elephants, vultures and hundreds of others) are unique to the continent. But perhaps the major difference is that in the northern hemisphere, the damage being done is driven mostly by greed, and in Africa it is driven mostly by poverty.
BLOOD SAFARI
Blood Safari is a harrowing novel from an expert storyteller whose wickedly fast-moving narratives reveal the heart of his enthralling country. Emma Le Roux, a beautiful young woman in Cape Town, sees her brother named on the television news as the prime suspect in the killing of four poachers and a witch doctor. But it can’t be possible: Emma’s brother is supposed to be dead, having disappeared twenty years ago in Kruger National Park. Emma tries to find out more, but is attacked and barely escapes. So she hires Lemmer, a personal security expert, and sets out into the country in search of the truth.
I was pleased to see the author photographed with a white-backed vulture (Gyps africanus) at the Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre. He is trying to hold on to the meat (just like Emma in the book), but the vulture is much too strong. Gyps africanus is the most widespread and common vulture in Africa, although it is now undergoing rapid decline. I once worked with a Harris hawk, in a similar situation, but it was much smaller and easier to deal with. According to the IUCN Red List:
Its [Gyps africanus] global population has been estimated at 270,000 individuals. Consistent with other vulture species, it has declined by over 90% in West Africa, and it has largely disappeared from Ghana apart from Mole National Park. The species has also declined in Sudan and South Sudan, Somalia and Kenya, but is apparently more stable in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and across southern Africa where an estimated 40,000 individuals remain.
TRACKERS
In Trackers, Meyer expertly weaves together Lemmer’s story with a missing person investigation and the machinations of a top intelligence agency. Wielding a phenomenal cast of characters, Meyer delves deep into the people, the breathtaking landscapes, and the politics and problems of this fascinating country. A #1 Best-Seller in South Africa, Trackers is an insightful novel that will take your breath away.
According to Deon’s website and WWF:
In Trackers, Lemmer rides shotgun on a truck transporting two of these – the black rhino.
Today, black rhinos remain Critically Endangered because of rising demand for rhino horn, which has driven poaching to record levels. A recent increase in poaching in South Africa threatens to erase our conservation success. The increase is driven by a growing demand from some Asian consumers, particularly in Vietnam, for folk remedies containing rhino horn. In 2014, a total of 1,215 rhinos were poached in South Africa – a 21% increase from the previous year. (Reference: WWF.)
When Deon does research for a book, he often travels to the actual settings, and takes lots of photographs. We’ve posted them here – just scroll down – to give you a glimpse of the world of the novel.
FEVER
He’s just really good, and Stephen King agrees, comparing Fever to his own novel The Stand.
In Fever, a coming-of-age story, the narrator, Nico, tells the story of his father, Willem Storm, who died in the Year of the Lion. His father had built an oasis away from the rest of the world suffering from a deadly virus resulting from genetically modified foods. This post-apocalyptic tale rivals others, such as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, when looking at the future of humanity and how people would react knowing that the world might be coming to an end.
Shots Mag has a wonderful interview with Meyer and states:
It is the vignettes scattered throughout Fever that make you pause, make you reflect and ponder what it is about us that makes us human, as well as the thinness of the line that separates us from all that is feral, wild and dangerous – both within humanity as well as outside – the inhumanity of our situation. The story of a survivor, who used to own an “all you can eat buffetâ€Â before the fever came, and why he closed it down becomes the novel in microcosm. Deon smiled and told me that the story of the guy who shut down his “all you can eat buffetâ€Â [before the virus hits] despite the success of the restaurant – was based on a true story, that he heard at a dinner party.
THIRTEEN HOURS
Bennie Griessel is the detective on the case of two crimes that unfold over thirteen hours. A book review on IOL describes how one character in the novel sees the other:
He’s realistic: “Political global warming and racial climate change should have taken their toll long ago, but here they were still, two old carnivores in the jungle, limbs stiff, teeth blunt, but still not completely ineffective.â€
MORE
Please see Meyer’s website for his other novels, all of which bring in the natural beauty of South Africa’s physical landscape and fuse it with great storytelling, sure to grip the reader. A review for Cobra in the Wall Street Journal says:
Mr. Meyer, the leading thriller writer in his native country, traffics in crime-novel situations familiar the world over: drunken cops, charming robbers, dangerous murderers, sudden violence – and sometimes, issues of race. Mr. Meyer’s South Africa, however, is unique. His books, translated from Afrikaans, are usually set in the Cape Town region, where mountains spectacularly meet the sea on the Horn of Africa. Amid these vistas his detective confronts his own – and his country’s – tortured past and the legacy of Apartheid.
While the author is a renowned crime-thriller novelist, he stated in a Guardian interview: “For me, the most important thing is to try to tell an entertaining story – let other people worry about what genre it is.†He recognizes fiction as having a restricted window view of society but also states, about representing all sectors of South Africa:
Everything is in service of the story and there are certain realities – in the police force, they have people of all ethnicities working together, so just to have black or white cops would not be credible. It’s all about verisimilitude. You have to create a world that’s believable, that’s close enough to the truth to be believed.
Mary Woodbury, a graduate of Purdue University, runs Dragonfly.eco, a site that explores ecology in literature, including works about climate change. She writes fiction under pen name Clara Hume. Her novel Back to the Garden has been discussed in Dissent Magazine, Ethnobiology for the Future: Linking Cultural and Ecological Diversity (University of Arizona Press), and Uncertainty and the Philosophy of Climate Change(Routledge). Mary lives in the lower mainland of British Columbia and enjoys hiking, writing, and reading.
———-
Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
JUST BEING
Self-isolation? It’s my natural state, so I smile as people emerge, groping like moles, from their action-packed, noise-filled lives and discover a new world: a world of birdsong and the songs of neighbors, a book on the balcony, recipes concocted from the store cupboard, old clothes worn again. It’s a world of today not tomorrow, of talking less and listening more, of wondering and pondering. Not out there, but in here. Not doing, but being. Join me; it’s not so scary after all. You might even come to prefer it.
— Angela Dyer (Limousin, France)
(Top photo: Finding new patterns.)
* * *
OUT FROM INSIDE
Suddenly it is silent in the biggest city in South America. São Paulo used to be an orchestra of cars, buses, motorbikes, and horns all through the day. Birds adapted their communication, singing later at night, around 11 PM. People used to go to bars from Monday to Monday. Now, we hear a hope of silence and we meet every day at 8:30 PM. Everybody goes to the window to shout “Fora!†(“Out!â€). We are screaming our deepest wish from inside: that our president leave the government. In silence, maybe our voices will be heard.
— Nathalia Favaro (São Paulo, Brazil)
8:30 PM in São Paulo.
* * *
NOTICE
On Saturday, locals hung a sign on the light post: “go the fuck home.†This weekend, an electronic sign at the turn reads “parks closed by health order.†I look over to the east hills. They look bigger, brighter than I recall. The duck’s cry echoes across the water in a way that I have not heard before. Every three minutes a car drives north or south. I time it. The planes fly only in the evening. The store has taped red tape to the floor at six foot intervals. A white-gloved man opens the door.
— Gwendolyn Meyer (California)
Deep woods.
* * *
SHOPPING TRIP
At the store, I replenish food supplies and check, again, for cleaning products. I’m struck by the boundaries that have been placed, the subtle encroachment of a new age, an air of sci-fi dystopia. Tall robots clean the aisles. “We’re stronger together,†a soft, feminine voice says over the loudspeaker. There are acrylic shields between guests and clerks, tape on the floor designating six feet between each patron like marks on the stage of a surreal, somber play. I pick up a jar absentmindedly, put it back, feel guilty; I never realized how frequently we touch each other.
— Alexis Bobrik (Berryville, Virginia)
Please buy only what you really need.
______________________________
This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.
———-
Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
A FOREIGN VIRUS
In these days of solitude, I remember why I no longer play my Baby Taylor and sing Psalms to the Lord, why I no longer sit in pews on Sundays and absorb the proclamations of charismatic men, why, now, I stare at my phone, at a Facebook post from a pastor I once admired, and war with myself. Should I say my Chinese wife owes him no apologies? Is it enough that people’s hearts have broken for those of his ilk to choose another adjective? “The virus is from there!†they’d say. And where it’s from is not here.
— Nathaniel Cayanan (West Covina, California)
(Top photo: Our wedding, on top of today’s news.)
* * *
A JOYFUL, SELFISH RESPONSE
It’s pouring. I wander, watching the torrent soak boxes carrying student valuables. Puddles coalesce. Students hug each other. They butcher pop tunes. Music reverberates from several dorms. Beer cans and wine bottles clog trash bins. “A far cry from social distancing,†I tell myself.
After avoiding handshakes and giving virtual hugs or elbow-bumps to favorite professors and not-so-close friends, I find someone I’ve missed dearly. We hug and catch up over dinner. I briefly think to myself, “how many people can’t hug loved ones because of carelessness?†We hug again and say goodbye. Letting go is hard.
— David Vejar (Tustin, California)
Even the fog doesn’t adhere to social distancing as it suffocates the Pomona College clocktower.
* * *
IN FLORENCE, A NEW FRIEND
For two days we walk the empty streets. Only permitted to view David’s replica, not the museum he guards. A late dinner. The full moon behind her as she speaks in Italian. “He will take us to Rome before the lockdown tomorrow.†We pack the art history books. I read her tarot cards as we wait for our future. Tuscany fades away as we are lulled to sleep by the car, our knees touching each other, burning and tingling. In Rome, I look into her eyes, then she disappears behind a door, which David guards and I cannot enter.
— Devi (Cascade Mountains, Washington)
March 10, 2020. Florence, Italy.
* * *
CRISIS
“Crisis†in Chinese is written with not one, but two characters: danger, followed by opportunity.
Danger is everywhere. But what about opportunity?Have you noticed that our leaders are now capable of making change overnight? Transportation in Spain has been reduced by fifty percent. China’s pollution has dropped by a quarter. People are buying local and consuming less. Are these not the very behaviors that must occur to mitigate the environmental crisis?
A month ago, we were struggling to discuss the changes needed to avoid two-degree warming. Today, we are witnessing just how quickly agreements can be made.
— Camille Hanson (Madrid, Spain)
Crisis.
* * *
RJÚPA
The wind-driven snow has piled up all month into towering drifts with knife-edge crests. There is a white bird, a Rjúpa, a ptarmigan in winter dress. She nestles down in the lee of the drift just below the crest to ride out the storm. Against the snow her eye and beak make tiny black marks. She stays there for hours. She is patient, calm, enduring, safe, well-equipped by nature to survive the storm. I bring this memory forth, and I feel calmer, more able. Nature is generous with her gifts.
— Andrea Krupp (Pennsylvania)
March 14, 2020. Siglufjörður, Iceland.
______________________________
This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.
———-
Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
